Author Topic: Bill Waterhouse (Read 19304 times)

Arsenal · « 2019-Nov-24, 05:22 PM **Reply #50** »

Thanks for posting jfc very good program .......as a bonus there are links to other interesting stories on You tube The Gamblers

Kevin Perkins book The Gambling Man also a very good read..it was taken off the market at one stage but is or was available recently.

Giddy Up

jfc · « 2019-Nov-24, 05:38 PM **Reply #51** »

Ray Thomas actually makes a bit of a effort.

As to Bill's smoking David Hickie's book Gentlemen of the turf (before the WSW chapter was later removed) claims someone made a quip about Bill's smoking, whereupon Bill immediately gave up for life.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/superracing/against-all-odds-bill-waterhouse-took-on-sydney-and-won-writes-ray-thomas/news-story/1a0a11b161d158e7d8e06066aebe1bad

Bubbasmith · « 2019-Nov-24, 06:00 PM **Reply #52** »

Most, if not all of those “leviathan”punters , with the exception of Ray Hopkins, in David Hickie’s book were either stealing money or just desperate ,ill informed, big punters. ( Ysmael, The Fireman etc ). If Waterhouse continued to accept their bets he knew they were bound to lose. Compare them to the punters such as Zeljko of today and Waterhouse would have limited their bets to a minimum or even banned them,

jfc · « 2019-Nov-26, 02:43 PM **Reply #53** »

RWW ignores Kings Cross casinos, but still an informative eulogy.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/dad-was-of-a-time-when-racing-was-punting-and-bookies-were-rockstars-20191123-p53dfq.html

jfc · « 2019-Nov-28, 12:47 PM **Reply #54** »

Certainly sounds like the Arthur Harris in that 4 Corners episode.

Big Bill W has died. The greatest crook in the history of the Australian turf. Not allowed to bookmake for 22 years; not allowed on a racetrack for 14 years. DOPING HORSES & DOGS,HAVING FAVS STOPPED, BIRD SMUGGLING, DRUGS, RING INS ' CHEATED FAMILY OF DEAD BROTHER COURT TAMPERING
— arthur harris (@outrageddddd) November 22, 2019

Arsenal · « 2019-Dec-01, 11:10 AM **Reply #55** »

Andrew Rule in the Herald Sun exposes the alleged activities of the late Bill Waterhouse.

Andrew Rule: Inside Bill Waterhouse’s ‘appalling’ scandals

Following the death of the “liar and cheat” Bill Waterhouse, the full stories of the bookmaker’s chequered career can now be told, writes Andrew Rule.
Andrew Rule, Sunday Herald Sun

December 1, 2019 8:00am

One of the biggest names in bookmaking Bill Waterhouse, father-in-law of horse trainer Gai, has died.

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941 and Australia was under threat, William Stanley Waterhouse was a strapping young man whose sharp intelligence was matched only by his instinct for self-preservation. The odds that he would enlist were 1000-1 and drifting.

Bill Waterhouse came from a line of smugglers, cockfight promoters, gamblers and sly groggers. For him, dodging military service came as naturally as robbing widows and orphans. War was not for fighting, it was for black market profiteering. Patriotism was for mugs.

Waterhouse was able to claim he had to run a farm bought expressly so he could claim an occupation classified as an “essential service”. But he left nothing to chance, studying medicine (automatically exempt) then taking up law as the war ended.

Infamous bookmaker Bill Waterhouse died last week at 97.

It was an early insight into how a liar and cheat manipulated others for profit all his life.

Waterhouse practised briefly as a barrister until his older brother, Charles, died at 39, leaving a widow and four children — the ones he would later rob of their inheritance, igniting a legal fight that split the family in the 1980s.

When it came to criminal behaviour, “Big Bill” wasn’t choosy: as a bookmaker and punter he was a race fixer who paid off trainers, jockeys and nobblers; as a developer and hotelier he bribed or blackmailed police and politicians. He smuggled currency to secret offshore bank accounts, ran an illegal casino and invested in wildlife and drug smuggling.

Apart from assuming control of brother Charles’ deceased estate, he took over his bookmaker stand as well, a cash business so lucrative the young barrister didn’t return to court except as defendant or plaintiff.

Bill Waterhouse took control of his dead brother’s bookmaker stand, which kept Waterhouse from continuing his legal practice.

Waterhouse, who died last week at 97, broke many laws and most moral codes in a life on the make in a city on the take. He was involved in the three most appalling scandals in Australian racing history. The full stories can now be told, but they are not the only ones.

Bart Cummings died in 2015 hating Waterhouse. Cummings, like his contemporary T.J. “Tommy” Smith, was not naive, sentimental or overly angelic. But he couldn’t forget, let alone forgive, the “nobbling” of his great stayer Big Philou before the 1969 Melbourne Cup.

Big Philou started scouring uncontrollably less than an hour before the Cup, twisting in agony and exploding with diarrhoea. He was scratched 39 minutes before the race he could and should have won.

Cummings never forgot what happened to Big Philou.

A strapper that Cummings had recently sacked was the prime suspect. His name was Les Lewis. He had telephoned Waterhouse’s Sydney office that month, and had apparently flown to Sydney to pick up cash. He bolted to New Zealand, was extradited for questioning but refused to put himself in danger by talking. On his death bed in 1997, he confessed, no longer afraid of Waterhouse’s pet gunman, the deadly Bertie Kidd.

The nobbling of Big Philou, distressing for the horse and its connections, robbed punters of “Cups double” payouts. Big Philou had won the Caulfield Cup and had been heavily backed to win the double. Bookies stood to lose staggering sums. Waterhouse had form: he had paid two notorious “fence jumpers” to nobble favourites in Sydney for years.

The truth was never quite proven, so Waterhouse was able to stare down the accusations with the help of a few tame reporters. But Big Philou’s rider, Roy Higgins, was savage in denouncing the nobbling, pointing out that if the drug had taken effect a little later, the horse could have collapsed in the run and brought down half the field, killing horses and riders.

“You got these evil human beings out there that would do that to a dumb animal, just for an illegal dollar,” Higgins said. Whoever did it, he said, “I’d spit on him”.

But Cummings got his revenge. It was in 1974, when he was training the magnificent mare Leilani.

Waterhouse, arrogantly assuming the Big Philou outrage was history, asked Cummings for any inside information. Cummings, deadpan, assured him Leilani wasn’t fit and could not win. Waterhouse rushed to exploit the “tip”, luring a gold rush of punters to back Leilani. He filled his bag with “mug” money.

Leilani won easily. Waterhouse approached Cummings, quivering with rage and hissed: “What was that for?”

Cummings answered: “That was for Big Philou.”

Bill Waterhouse with estranged son David.

We know this is true because the bookmaker’s youngest son remembers it clearly. His name is David Waterhouse and he did not speak to his father for 27 years for good reasons.

The strongest reason of all is the unsolved torture and murder of a battling Sydney horse trainer, George Brown, in early 1984. The killers twisted Brown’s left arm until it was wrenched from its socket and the bone snapped. His right arm was shattered above the elbow with an iron bar.

Both legs were broken above the knee. Death was from a caved-in skull. Then they burned his broken body in his car beside a freeway north of Sydney. The sort of nightmare crime we associate with Mexico or Colombia.

George Brown was a former jumping jockey who loved horses. But in the new year of 1984, friends and family saw his easygoing character change. He was under pressure.
The burnt out Ford Falcon that trainer George Brown was found inside of in 1984.

Brown had been coerced into pulling the sort of “ring-ins” that would become notorious later that year. It seems he did one or two under duress then could not extricate himself.

In late March 1984, he took a slow filly named Risley to Doomben races in Brisbane. The accepted version of events is that Brown refused to go through with the
ring-in. Apart from anything else, the substitute horse he had been told to use was the wrong gender.

The plan had depended on Risley being inspected by a steward on arrival in Brisbane well before the race. But as starting time got closer the steward had still not checked Risley. Brown feared that the later the stewards saw the filly, the more likely it was they would spot the gelding saddled to run under her name.

Brown’s nerve cracked and he saddled the real Risley to run. She ran second last after being backed in from 14-1 to 4-1 at Wollongong, and from 12-1 to 8-1 at city meetings, an interstate plunge that completely ignored her weak form and was inexplicable unless the backers thought the race was fixed.

Brown returned to Sydney a frightened man. He was killed a week later.
Horse trainer George Brown.

Bill had been up to his neck in the third scandal attached to the Waterhouse name, the Fine Cotton affair of August 1984.

The scam depended on a quality galloper running in the name of the inferior Fine Cotton at Eagle Farm. The problem was that the original choice as ring-in, Dashing Solitaire, which looked like the plodder Fine Cotton, had been hurt in a paddock accident. So another horse, Bold Personality, was swung in at the last minute. It looked nothing like Fine Cotton.

This was, of course, why the people handling the horses that day were forced to dye Bold Personality in a clumsy attempt to make it look more like Fine Cotton. They knew it wouldn’t work. But when they tried to tell the scam’s Sydney backers that, they were told to shut up if they didn’t want to end up “like George Brown”.

Bold Personality (inside), racing as Fine Cotton.

The inevitable debacle led to Bill Waterhouse and his son Robbie being “warned off” indefinitely for acting with “prior knowledge” of the ring-in.

It was generous of the authorities to let them back into racing some 17 years later.

Questions over George Brown’s murder remain unanswered.

One well-informed family member maintains the actual hired “heavy” was a standover man we will call “Tongan Tommy”, helped by up to three of his countrymen.

Bill Waterhouse was a longstanding friend of the then King of Tonga, which was why he became Consul-General for the tiny island nation in the 1970s. Apart from any social cachet, this gave Waterhouse diplomatic immunity. He had consular number plates for his car and, more importantly, could use diplomat pouches on international flights.

The debacle led to Bill Waterhouse being “warned off” along with his son Robbie.

Arthur Harris, a form analyst who worked for Waterhouse for some 20 years before the 1984 scandals, knows the family as well as anyone. He points out that for a long time Bill Waterhouse used a colourful priest, Father Edward O’Dwyer, named in the Fine Cotton inquiry for placing large bets for a “friend” — meaning Waterhouse.

O’Dwyer died in 2016 and so cannot refute accusations that he exploited the former immunity of priests from Customs searches to carry huge amounts of black cash out of Australia to be banked secretly on Bill’s behalf. When the priest lost his immunity from searches, Harris says, Waterhouse switched to using Tongan diplomat pouches.

The Tongan connection had other advantages, according to sources familiar with international bird-smuggling rackets. Waterhouse sent a racing identity and convicted criminal, Gabe Hayek, to Papua New Guinea in the 1980s to obtain birds of paradise.

The live birds, according to a Queensland exotic bird breeder and a former federal police investigator, were flown to Tonga then sold on at huge profit to a Qatari oil sheik with reputedly the world’s largest collection of rare birds.

David Waterhouse (right) & brother Robbie.

David Waterhouse, Bill’s estranged son, did not speak to his father for 27 years after giving evidence against him and older brother Robbie in the Fine Cotton inquiries.

David recalls his father sending corrupt police chief Bill Allen to his illegal casino in Rockwall Crescent, Potts Point, to pick up weekly cash bribes for the then premier, Neville Wran. Sometimes young David would be sent on the errand.

MORE ANDREW RULE

But he realised he was as expendable as everyone else on a trip to Tonga in 1980, when Bill asked him to “mind” an illegal marijuana crop there.

“I said to him: ‘So you’re a common criminal drug dealer’ and flew home next morning,” David Waterhouse recalled this week.

He won’t be attending his father’s funeral, which is to be held just before Christmas.

“No one loved Bill,” is David’s summary. “Good riddance.”

andrew.rule@news.com.au

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/andrew-rule/andrew-rule-inside-bill-waterhouses-appalling-scandals/news-story/fabf63cf94f235d1b9b567874884c380

Giddy Up

jfc · « 2019-Dec-01, 12:29 PM **Reply #56** »

Fascinating!.

Chris Murphy was David's friend and once used his media programs and columns to raise awareness of WSW's peccadilloes.

Curious why he's acting like a stunned mullet, when he could now unload with impunity.

JWesleyHarding · « 2019-Dec-01, 01:03 PM **Reply #57** »

My rule of thumb over the years has been that a client or friend of Chris Murphy is, ipso facto, guilty of whatever is being charged.

jfc · « 2019-Dec-01, 01:21 PM **Reply #58** »

My rule of thumb is to wait for people to die before publicly making unflattering remarks about them.

Murphy has successfully sued forums and media.

Chris Murphy: the Sydney criminal lawyer turned stockmarket punter settled with The Daily Telegraph over an inoffensive gossip column item largely written by Lachlan Johnston but carrying Stephen Mayne's by-line that compared him with his namesake who owns 2SM and used to manage INXS. Murphy has also sued an internet chatroom.

http://www.maynereport.com/articles/2009/03/10-1024-2493.html

jfc · « 2019-Dec-01, 06:32 PM **Reply #59** »

Libertarians offer their opinion.

Some interesting comments about the Huxley saga,

http://catallaxyfiles.com/2019/11/23/bill-waterhouse/

Jeunes · « 2019-Dec-01, 08:53 PM **Reply #60** »

The article in the Herald Sun will ruffle a few feathers in the Waterhouse Clan.

It is an extremely wealthy clan so not sure what their response will be as Andrew Rule did not mince words.

Interesting regarding the death of the Sydney trainer George Brown

https://www.9news.com.au/national/sydney-news-murder-race-horse-trainer-george-brown/e2db4b75-be5f-497d-bc03-e081e0424646

https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/5987039/1-million-reward-for-information-on-murdered-horse-trainer-found-at-bulli-tops/

JWesleyHarding · « 2019-Dec-01, 09:09 PM **Reply #61** »

They've obviously waited till WS died before trotting this stuff out again.

Bubbasmith · « 2019-Dec-02, 09:03 AM **Reply #62** »

Dead men cannot sue, but can their surviving family ? No where in Rule’s expose did he defame any members of his surviving family members.Surely before going to press the expose would have been run over by NewsCorp legal team.

Arsenal · « 2019-Dec-02, 10:03 AM **Reply #63** »

Never heard of "Bertie Kidd" until he was mentioned in passing on the Bill Waterhouse story seems he was an admitted criminal .....also a race fixer allegedly "the instigator of the Fine Cotton " ring in ....I do remember Tom King then superintendent of HMP Woodford a near Brisbane prison reporting Gillespie visited another inmate in the chokey a few days before the ring in he was pulled up on the way home which may or may not have alerted authorities to what was in store on Saturday.

Read all about it and there's a book The Audacious Kidd.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7646213/The-untold-story-Bertie-Kidd-Australias-complete-criminal.html

Giddy Up

jfc · « 2019-Dec-02, 10:10 AM **Reply #64** »

Andrew Rule interview re his article.

https://player.whooshkaa.com/player/playlist/show/1712?scrolling_title=true&visual=true&episode=502453

PoisonPen7 · « 2019-Dec-02, 12:35 PM **Reply #65** »

I always assumed the Brown murder was another prominent CRI of the time (also deceased) who had form for murder.

The associations with the Brown murder and Bill Waterhouse are vague (at best) in the article.

jfc · « 2019-Dec-02, 02:59 PM **Reply #66** »

Another perspective.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/gentleman-bookmaker-brought-a-different-style-to-racing-20191127-p53ekq.html

Bubbasmith · « 2019-Dec-02, 07:45 PM **Reply #67** »

Quote from: jfc on 2019-Dec-02, 02:59 PM

Another perspective.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/gentleman-bookmaker-brought-a-different-style-to-racing-20191127-p53ekq.html

By his daughter Louise.

Bubbasmith · « 2019-Dec-02, 07:51 PM **Reply #68** »

Looks as if there are varying opinions of Bill Waterhouse amongst family members and others
Living:
Robbie

Tom

Louise

John

According to WWS in his book What Are The Odds
David

Martin

Chris Murphy

Andrew Rule

Arthur Harris

Deceased
Jack Muir

Eugene Gorman

Neville Wran

Lionel Murphy

Robert Askin

Bob Hawke

Bart Cummings

George Freeman

It appears a few politicians were in Team Waterhouse

jfc · « 2019-Dec-03, 09:23 AM **Reply #69** »

Quote from: Arsenal on 2019-Dec-02, 10:03 AM

Never heard of "Bertie Kidd" until he was mentioned in passing on the Bill Waterhouse story seems he was an admitted criminal .....also a race fixer allegedly "the instigator of the Fine Cotton " ring in ....I do remember Tom King then superintendent of HMP Woodford a near Brisbane prison reporting Gillespie visited another inmate in the chokey a few days before the ring in he was pulled up on the way home which may or may not have alerted authorities to what was in store on Saturday.

Read all about it and there's a book The Audacious Kidd.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7646213/The-untold-story-Bertie-Kidd-Australias-complete-criminal.html

Giddy Up

Coincidentally....

I enjoyed and found interesting the ‘Audacious Kidd’ by one time huge punter Bert Kidd. Good Christmas present book. https://t.co/OU1Mp9xaEY
— Rob Waterhouse (@RobWaterhouse) November 18, 2019

jfc · « 2019-Dec-03, 11:20 AM **Reply #70** »

Better late than never.

That grub Bill Waterhouse and the tip of the iceberg exposed by Andrew Rule. Let's just have the truth instead of the hogwash praise of this greedy man. https://t.co/bETgIUPqev
— chris murphy (@chrismurphys) December 3, 2019

Peter Mair · « 2019-Dec-04, 07:00 AM **Reply #71** »

Blame by rumour gets a life of its own

It is clear enough that 'no one' knows who was responsible for some racing 'events'.

However 'not knowing' has not stopped the blame being allocated to players in the public eye.

There is some truth in the maxim that all publicity is good publicity but the limit was exceeded on a few occasions when the 'racing police' were looking to bolster and bluster their dedication to 'integrity' --- dishing out discretionary penalties with alacrity to 'known offenders'.

jfc · « 2019-Dec-04, 11:48 AM **Reply #72** »

Old story elaborating on the George Brown murder.

https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/906388/racing-family-at-odds-over-brothers-amazing-claim/

PoisonPen7 · « 2019-Dec-04, 04:11 PM **Reply #73** »

Quote from: jfc on 2019-Dec-04, 11:48 AM

Old story elaborating on the George Brown murder.

https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/906388/racing-family-at-odds-over-brothers-amazing-claim/

In 1995, when Robbie tried but failed to have his ban from race courses lifted, David had told an inquiry that his brother was the mastermind of the Fine Cotton ring-in - a claim never proved and which Robbie has always denied.

....

In the Supreme Court in Melbourne, Justice Bill Ormiston had described David as a ''devious and unreliable witness'' and ''a person whose commercial morality was of the lowest order'' in his dealings in the mid-1980s with an art dealer, Brian Pearce.

John Gillespie was the mastermind behind the Fine Cotton ring in.

And George Freeman organized for the scam to be uncovered.

The media always marry up the Risley murder and the Fine Cotton ring in but the murder happened four months before Fine Cotton came along.

There has not been any evidence ever presented (to the best of my knowledge) that the two cases were ever linked. Haitana trying to explain why he absconded when caught does not constitute evidence.

Bubbasmith · « 2019-Dec-04, 05:00 PM **Reply #74** »

Quote from: PoisonPen7 on 2019-Dec-04, 04:11 PM

In 1995, when Robbie tried but failed to have his ban from race courses lifted, David had told an inquiry that his brother was the mastermind of the Fine Cotton ring-in - a claim never proved and which Robbie has always denied.

....

In the Supreme Court in Melbourne, Justice Bill Ormiston had described David as a ''devious and unreliable witness'' and ''a person whose commercial morality was of the lowest order'' in his dealings in the mid-1980s with an art dealer, Brian Pearce.

John Gillespie was the mastermind behind the Fine Cotton ring in.

And George Freeman organized for the scam to be uncovered.

The media always marry up the Risley murder and the Fine Cotton ring in but the murder happened four months before Fine Cotton came along.

There has not been any evidence ever presented (to the best of my knowledge) that the two cases were ever linked. Haitana trying to explain why he absconded when caught does not constitute evidence.

I have copies of Bill Waterhouse's autobiography ",What Are The Odds", " The Gambling Man" , the life of Waterhouse written by Kevin Perkins and "George Freeman : An autobiography " written by Freeman in 1988 and after reading them all I am non the wiser about the money behind the ring in. Haitana and Gillespie were bit players in the saga.

There was a theory before that George backed the second horse Harbour Gold and had his mates call out "ring In " as Fine Cotton returned to scale, but whether that is true or not it adds to the intrigue of the whole story.
It is of interest In Freeman's book there is a glowing "To Whom It May Concern " written by John Waterhouse Jnr, referring to Freeman , as a valued client, he never disputed his bets and paid his betting debts accordingly.